US politics

( 48hills.org) – Israel and Trump are deliberately trying to provoke a crisis for the next President to inherit, Iran sources say Imagine for a moment what would happen if unknown assassins murdered a high-ranking US scientist involved with chemical weapons. Let’s say officials in Iran quietly took responsibility, arguing that the US had violated […]

Bill of Rights

How Big Oil is Buying our Representatives to Criminalize Environmental Protests

Basav Sen

( Otherwords.org) – More communities are standing up to pipelines. The fossil fuel industry wants to make that a felony. By Basav Sen | December 2, 2020 A few years ago, massive protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock changed the popular narrative about what climate activism looked like. The protests made clear […]

Conspiracy Theories

Communists were jailed for Less: Trumpies call for overthrow of US Constitution

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Caitlin Dickson at Yahoo News reports that Trump supporters and Tea Partiers have begun calling for a suspension of the US constitution to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. The only way to parse “suspension” of the constitution is its temporary overthrow. Moreover, they are calling for the use of […]

Afghanistan

US Troops are finally returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but what to kind of American are they returning

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – By the end of this year, the White House will reportedly have finally brought home a third of the 7,500 troops still stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq (against the advice of President Trump’s own military leaders). While there have been stories galore about the global security implications […]

Democratic Party

How Biden is determined to Parry Trump’s Sabotage and restore Iran Nuclear Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The NYT’s Thomas Friedman reports on a recent telephone conversation he had with Joe Biden, and the interview contains good news. Biden made it clear that he will attempt to re-institute the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal, admitting, “It’s going to be hard, but […]

Donald Trump

Why America’s Lame Duck 7 Weeks is Palestine’s Nightmare

Harry Blain

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Before Obama took office, Israel viciously assaulted the Gaza Strip. As Trump gets the boot, could another gambit be in the works? The political scientist William Adler recently argued that the main risk of our current lame duck period is inaction, rather than action. So far as the United […]

Conspiracy Theories

“Stop the Stupid”: Even GOP Stalwarts Are Turning on Trump’s Coup Attempt

Sandy Milne

(Special to Informed Comment) – Trump’s coup may have failed, but the scars to democracy won’t heal for generations. In a fitting end to his four years in power, he took to Twitter to reject the election’s results. “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election,” he exclaimed, casting doubt over […]

Climate Crisis

The Fall of the American Empire on a Failing Planet

Tom Engelhardt

(Tomdispatch.com ) – We’re now living in an age of opacity, as Rudy Giuliani pointed out in a courtroom recently. Here was the exchange: “‘In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,’ Giuliani said. ‘I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means […]

Democracy

Biden vows Turkey’s Autocrat Erdogan must “Pay a Price” for attacks on Critics, Syrian Kurds

Middle East Monitor

By Ahmet Alioglu | – ( Middle East Monitor) – One of the leading assistants of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, and a founder of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), resigned last week from the government’s high advisory council citing disagreements and discontent over judicial practices. Bulent Arinc called for a comprehensive reassessment […]